TRI-CITY PATIENT POACHING SUIT DISMISSED

Public hospital district had protested after doctors sent patients to Scripps facilities

A judge has dismissed a patient poaching lawsuit filed in 2009 by Tri-City Medical Center against Scripps Health.

In a final ruling filed Feb. 22 and announced Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Earl H. Maas stated that Tri-City failed to show “unfair competition” or to “establish the existence of an actual controversy” between the two parties.

Tri-City CEO Larry Anderson said late Tuesday afternoon that the hospital had just received the ruling and was still preparing a comment on it.

The suit stems from Scripps’ purchase of the Sharp Mission Park doctors group in 2008. When the group of 65 doctors began admitting their patients to Scripps hospitals, instead of Tri-City, in early 2009, the public district hospital’s daily census dropped, costing it millions of dollars.

Anderson, who had recently been appointed chief executive, called a news conference alleging that Scripps had put patients at risk, and was engaging in prohibited business practices, by directing its doctors to send patients to Scripps hospitals in Encinitas, La Jolla or Chula Vista for care that they could just as easily receive in Oceanside.

Scripps insisted that it directed its patients to go to the nearest hospital for emergency care and that it was within its rights to transfer patients out of Tri-City to its own facilities once they had been stabilized.

Over the ensuing four years, the case has bounced from state to federal court and back again.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps’ chief executive officer, said Tuesday that he was happy the expensive lawsuit was over.

“From the beginning we did not believe that any of our behaviors, any of our actions, were illegal or unethical,” Van Gorder said. “We were convinced from the very beginning that justice would prevail, and now it has.”

Van Gorder said he did not know exactly how much money Scripps spent defending the lawsuit, but guessed it must have been “in the high six figures.”

He said that Tri-City’s pursuit of the suit was extra concerning because Tri-City receives some public tax money.

“Any gripes and grievances could have been handled in a much better way than there were. There were always opportunities for collaboration, but it’s pretty hard to collaborate when someone is suing you and saying bad things about you in news conferences,” Van Gorder said.

He said there’s still room for the two organizations to work together, despite four years of legal wrangling.

“I’ve always said I’d be willing to collaborate with Tri-City, but that’s a two-way street,” Van Gorder said.